This authoritative account explores the facts that lie behind the Weapons of Mass Destruction programmes in Iraq. Graham Pearson shows how these programmes were gradually uncovered through the efforts of UN specialist exerts, then by UNSCOM and UNMOVIC and finally by the Iraq Survey Group. The book analyses why there was no stockpile of chemical or biological weapons to be found in Iraq. Finally, it examines the lessons for inspection, verification and non-proliferation in the chemical and biological weapons prohibition regimes.

GRAHAM S. PEARSON is Honorary Visiting Professor in International Security at the Department of Peace Studies of the University of Bradford, UK, where he is engaged on work addressing the strengthening of the Biological Weapons Convention and on the Chemical Weapons Convention. He was also Chairman of an International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) Working Party on Chemical Weapons Destruction Technologies. He was formerly Director General and Chief Executive of the Chemical and Biological Defence Establishment at Porton Down. He is active in the area of chemical and biological weapons non-proliferation and has published numerous works on the subject including The UNSCOM Saga (1999).